The lady vanishes Traditional Cache
Kryten: No longer interested in feathering Groundspeak's nest
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This cache is located at the end of a short length of dismantled railway originally constructed in 1893 as part of the East Fife Central Railway.
This was a freight only line which ran from Leven to Lochty but was not a major success and was was shut in 1964 with only a short length of track adjacent to the Lochty terminus remaining. The current OS map shows this track as having been been dismantled but my ten year old edition of the same map shows both a station and something called the Lochty Private Railway on this site, so what's the story ?
Well between 1966 and 1985, this isolated part of Fife was the place to come and pay homage to a very famous blue lady. Built for LNER in 1937, the lady we are talking about is a classic example of art-deco design, streamlined, elegant and fast, very fast. Designed by Sir Nigel Gresley and capable of continuous operation at 100mph the lady in question was 103 tons of class A4 Pacific steam engine. Originally, like the rest of her class, named after a bird, shortly after construction she and four sisters were renamed for the dominions of the British Empire, these being;
4488 Union of South Africa
4489 Dominion of Canada
4490 Empire of India
4491 Commonwealth of Australia
4492 Dominion of New Zealand
It was the "Union of South Africa" that lived here. Originally painted in LNER garter blue, this class of engine became forever famous when another sister, "Mallard", was clocked at 126mph, setting the world speed record for steam engines that remains unbroken to this day.
After being withdrawn from British Rail service in 1966, Union of South Africa was immediately acquired by a group of businessmen who set up the Lochty Private Railway, the first railway preservation society in Scotland. Here she pulled trains of tourists while never making it out of the steam engine equivalent of first gear, but keeping an engine such as this on an isolated one and a half mile stretch of track was cruelty indeed and not dis-similar to keeping a cheetah in your back garden. During the early 1980's, anti apartheid politics turned her into the engine that dare not speak it's name, so she ran for a while under her original bird name of "Osprey".
Eventually however takings dwindled, costs rose and the railway preservation society folded, the track was lifted and the station demolished, the last part of the East Fife Central Railway was gone. So as you walk the track bed, you now have to imagine what it was like to stand and watch a thoroughbred racehorse of a steam engine thunder through the cornfields of Fife.
The engine remains the property of the original buyers and now lives in a storage shed at Thornton, although after having received a major refit she is once again certified for main line running. She is currently sporting the post-nationalisation British Rail green livery and running number (60009) instead of the iconic LNER garter blue, a fashion crime which we can only pray is swiftly rectified. More importantly she is occasionally allowed out to play on the main line where she pulls steam specials for enthusiasts at speeds well beyond first gear.
Of the thrity five class A4 Pacific's originally constructed by LNER, six have survived the blowtorch.
4464 Bittern - Mid-Hants Railway (Overhaul)
4468 Mallard - National Railway Museum (Static)
4488 Union of South Africa - Thornton (Running)
4489 Dominion of Canada - Canadian Railway Muesum Montreal (Static)
4496 Dwight D. Eisenhower - National Railroad Museum Wisconsin (Static)
4498 Sir Nigel Gresley - North York Moors Railway (Overhaul)
Park on the verge at N56°15.718, W002°46.445 and please don't block any of the gates. Traces of the station platform can be found at N56°15.685, W002°46.469
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Cbfg